Humor in QFG
Forgive me while I take a moment to "pun"-tificate. What had originally been conceived of as a serious RPG/Adventure Game Hybrid evolved its own quirky sense of humor from the team of people working on it, and so we soon had all manners of pun with it. The first game of the Quest for Glory series, "So You Want to Be a Hero," was set in the lovely alpine village of Spielburg. The word, "Spiel" in German means "game," so the name literally meant "Game Town." For many years, the name Spielburg was associated with the director of "Indiana Jones", so it only made sense to name the Baron of the land "Stefan." His son's name, Barnard, reflected his un-bear-able personality. Another couple of odd word plays came from the Marx Brothers movie, "Horse Feathers." For one thing, the Centaurs in Spielburg have the last name of Pferdefedern, which is the German translation. In that movie, there is a hilarious sequence of gags involving a secret password -- swordfish. So, of course, the password to the Thieves' Guild became "Schwertfisch." "'enry the 'ermit name and shtick were derived from a silly song of the 60's called, "enry the Eighth." Part 2 Meep the Rest Lest I re-meep myself, we pretty much covered Meeps last November. Nevertheless, they are the unofficial Transolar Games mascots, so I'll have to dig meep to uncover the hole story. Meeps were designed with "Hack-n-slash" player in mind -- the type of person who attacks anything that moves. If the player's character got near a Meep, it popped back into its hole and another popped up. So you could make your poor Hero run madly around trying to bop a Meep. What you couldn't see was all the Meeps in their holes giggling madly at the Hero's silliness. Antwerps Anonymous Antwerps were the creation of the artist Jeff Crowe. Everyone on the team was encouraged to contribute to the game, and Jeff animated this very strange creature. Since it really didn't fit in with anything else in the game, I had to figure out what to do with it. This became a "gotcha" trap. Attack it, and you were in big trouble. It bounced higher and higher until it was out of sight. Then when your Hero walked to a different part of the forest, the Antwerp landed and squashed the Hero flat. Now my philosophy of game design is that you don't directly kill off a character. Oh, there will be plenty of chances to die in my games, but if you play the game carefully, you live to enjoy it. On the other hand, there's a classification of game gags - the "LSL" - where a death is worth experiencing because it is funny. So You are duly warned in the Adventurer's Guild that it isn't wise to mess with Antwerps. There's even an Antwerp head on the wall there, killed by the "Two Guys from Andromeda." was an in joke reference to the fictitious designers of the "Space Quest" series, since Antwerps were clearly out of this world. There was a way out of this embarrassing death, though. If you irritated an Antwerp enough to jump out of sight, you could hear it on its way down. If you held up your sword, the Antwerp landed directly on it. What do you get when you "pop" an Antwerp? You get hundreds of baby Antwerps. Now you know the real reason you don't mess with Antwerps. Dragon's Breath "Whatever you do, don't drink the Dragon's Breath!" If I told you that once, I told you that a hundred times (well, at least three or four times). Even that lying scum Bruno tells you that, well, sort of. Actually, he recommends it, but that's just the sort of guy he is. This is definitely an "LSL" gag death (from the finest examples of killing off characters in interesting ways - the "Leisure Suit Larry" games). It was as visually funny a death as our artists could make it. Let that be a lesson to all of you about the evils of strong drink. Pixilated Pixies There is something magical about mushroom rings when you see them in real life. In the game, the mushroom rings were inhabited by Pixies at night. Not just any pixies - very powerful, very mischievous flashes of colored light with all the maturity of seven-year-old girls at a slumber party. Like a bevy of babysitter's nightmares, these little dears wanted you to do something for them. All you had to do is dance. How well you danced depended upon your agility. If you skimped in allotting some points to that skill, your dance was, well, two words -- "in" and "ept." The Not-Good, the Bad, and the Ugly Hero Sandwich, anyone? As the Galloping Gourmet of no-good-niks, Baba Yaga is probably the most unlikely antagonists of any game. First, she uses her variant on the every popular, "Foe-to-Toad" spell and almost makes Frog Legs Fricassee out of you. Then she sends you on a very dangerous quest to a graveyard at night, all because she has the munchies. And then what happens when you finally confront this villainess at the game's end? Well, it's not exactly "toad-all" annihilation, but she's definitely hopping mad. Erasmus and Fenrus Erasmus and Fenrus predate Quest for Glory by about eight years. They were created for our MENSA Fantasy Role-playing Special Interest Group newsletter called, "The SpellBook." Here is a copy of the first strip of the series. Okay, so it isn't exactly High Art, but it was fun at the time. Nor was it in color in the original, but Michael took the time to colorize this version. When we started working on Quest for Glory, it just seemed natural to add our favorite Wizard and his Familiar to the story. They definitely had a Quirky sense of humor that fit in perfectly with the way the game was evolving. you can see, my version of Erasmus had much less hair than any of the other ones. Neither he nor Fenrus wore the silly Wizard hats in the comic strip. Erasmus is known in Hero's Quest for his sense of humor. (He is obviously fond of Monty Python's Holy Grail, judging from the questions the gargoyle asks when the Hero tries to visit Erasmus.] Unfortunately, his sense of humor is not very sophisticated. You can tell by the jokes he is happy to share with the Hero whenever Erasmus can get a word in edgewise. Erasmus and Fenrus Part Two Erasmus and Fenrus Part Two The Foyer to Erasmus's house in the first game was designed to be a treasure trove of in-jokes and easter eggs. Most of these came from the imagination and the art of Jerry Moore, who had worked on many other Sierra games over the years. It was also designed as a trap for the unwise player. The Dragon Head over the desk gives the player specific instructions that the Hero should not touch anything but go straight up the stairs. If the player fails to heed this advice and take something, the Hero is teleported back down to the bottom of Zauberberg Mountain. By this time, it is very likely the player is getting a little tired of being sent to the bottom again. However, I assure you, the player is not as tired of it as the poor hero. But it is what you get if you mess around with powerful wizards. After all, if the Hero does make it through the foyer to the stairs leading to the tower, the player gets to see Erasmus and Fenrus disappear from their portraits on the walls. You didn't think they let strangers just walk into their house, did you? Besides, what's the fun of setting traps if you aren't going to be around to see the results? Of course, once you were in the tower with Erasmus, he was happy to see you - Particularly if you were a Magic User. It gave him a chance to play his favorite game, "Mage's Maze." He was getting tired of Fenrus always beating him at the game. The game was designed so that the Magic-Users could practice their spells and increase their Magic Skill without having to chase down a lot of monsters and risk uncertain death. Besides, it was Fun, too. Erasmus and Fenrus add their wisecracks and charm to four of the five other games in the series. https://web.archive.org/web/20040409213634fw_/http://www.transolar.com:80/TSQGhumor.html References Category:Articles (HTBAH)